Disassociated tour for aviators on aircraft carriers/gators

[Max the Mad Russian]

given when that was he could have been one of the last guys to go that path, you normally don't see sub nukes who become EDO's become CHENGS, when I left sea duty in 2009 the billets for CHENGs were either SWO EDO or SWO(N) -EDO's

Thank you. The wall becomes thiker... Anyway, God bless carrier tour SWOs. I think they deserve it.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Folks,

Let's consider the situation of the opposite deal - jump from the aviation world with a few SWO outposts to SWO world with some few aviation spots: of what kind are the relationships between, say, FFG CO and his helo detachment OIC? Is that purely boss-to-subordinate?
Again, in USN helo community I do suppose some airborne jobs typically assigned to NFOs in Tailhook and/or MPRA (say ASW profile of the Naval Sea Combat Squadrons) are making by NAs. Nothing about tactics, just are these NFOs' skill quite hard to possess by NAs?

 

[Brett327]

Pilots and NFOs are detailed interchangeably in almost all cases.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Pilots and NFOs are detailed interchangeably in almost all cases.

Thanks but the only naval carrier-able aircraft of the nearest past where NFO on starboard bank possessed a stick and a throttles was S-3 Viking. And I have never heard of the NA of tailhooks or MPRA who digs in sensors or targeting radars while that is probably what both NAs do on a Seahawk...

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

The early-model Ticos became O5 commands towards the end.

Respectfully, a democracy. Or what? Since those Ticos before VLSs were essentially improved Spruances, it is fair to have O-5 in command. Contrary, the Soviet Navy Kynda-class of 4 ships. The leadship designed as frigate, commissioned as DDG, then fell under personal Khruschev inspection. He was an avid lover of all that can be called "missile", and so insisted that a ship which can kill a carrier with one salvo (at least he believed she can) should be a cruiser. It's a Soviet time: Party says so and so, folks answer "yes, sir" and do that. So we have a cruiser of 5000 tonnes or slightly more, and thus a full Captain on the bridge....

 

[Gatordev]

Thanks but the only naval carrier-able aircraft of the nearest past where NFO on starboard bank possessed a stick and a throttles was S-3 Viking. And I have never heard of the NA of tailhooks or MPRA who digs in sensors or targeting radars while that is probably what both NAs do on a Seahawk...

There's nothing NFOs do that a pilot couldn't be trained to do. It's just a matter of how the community utilizes their bodies and how they train them. The helo community has used pilots as their tactical operators (along with enlisted crewman) for decades and it works fine. Could a NFO also do that mission (I'm talking just the tactics side of it)? Of course, but it's just not how we've done business historically in Naval Aviation.

 

[Flash]

There's nothing NFOs do that a pilot couldn't be trained to do. It's just a matter of how the community utilizes their bodies and how they train them. The helo community has used pilots as their tactical operators (along with enlisted crewman) for decades and it works fine. Could a NFO also do that mission (I'm talking just the tactics side of it)? Of course, but it's just not how we've done business historically in Naval Aviation.

The Royal Navy and a few others have Observers/Navigators/NFO's in helos and even fly them single-piloted in some cases with the non-pilot in the right seat, but we have never done it for some reason.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

There's nothing NFOs do that a pilot couldn't be trained to do. It's just a matter of how the community utilizes their bodies and how they train them. The helo community has used pilots as their tactical operators (along with enlisted crewman) for decades and it works fine. Could a NFO also do that mission (I'm talking just the tactics side of it)? Of course, but it's just not how we've done business historically in Naval Aviation.

Ok thanks. NFO's job, again historically, is stemming from enlisted navigators/operators in VAH community, started with AJ-1 Savage, AFAIK. So once upon a time that was NCO's and lower rank job, roughly up to 1960. Some of that could be done by enlisted personnell quite longer, given the SENSO job on S-3A Viking. If it is still shared by NAs and enlisted men in helo community, whether it means that NAs (and enlisteds to some degree) can be employed as NFOs in the other communities?

The Royal Navy and a few others have Observers/Navigators/NFO's in helos and even fly them single-piloted in some cases with the non-pilot in the right seat, but we have never done it for some reason.

Moreover, British Observers of, for example, No 814 Sqdn used to be the overall TACCO while operating from frigates, i.e. entire ship fell under tactical authority of that Observer while an ASW-shaped Merlin is aloft and in search mode. In Russian Navy too, the common ASW helo, three-crewed Ka-27, has just a single pilot - others are TACCO (officer, non-pilot) and a WO/CPO (enlisted) sonar operator.
It is clear that twin-piloted Seahawk of USN has wider range of tasks than purely ASW helo of any other navy and maybe some greater endurance so that the pilots can share the control while aloft.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Gents,

Another question. Have some of you ever met a former Army helo pilot who undertook interservice transfer to the Navy and their choice was again the helo community here? I found several guys from West Point and have been told about the Colorado Springs people too, who after initial pilot training in their parental services switched to the Navy but all of them choose Naval Strike Fighter community. So what about an "aliens" in the helo fraternity of USN?

 

[Hair Warrior]

@ Max, what are your thoughts on Russia's new "drone submarine" with a nuclear warhead and nuclear propulsion?

How many of these has Russia built and fielded (if any)? What naval unit is in charge of piloting them?

To me, the potential for catastrophe (e.g. loss, failure, or negligent discharge) seems greater than the potential for ever using it in a real situation.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

@ Max, what are your thoughts on Russia's new "drone submarine" with a nuclear warhead and nuclear propulsion?

How many of these has Russia built and fielded (if any)? What naval unit is in charge of piloting them?

To me, the potential for catastrophe (e.g. loss, failure, or negligent discharge) seems greater than the potential for ever using it in a real situation.

Well, I'm retired SWO. It's better to ask a submariner. But my personal opinion - this is the thing for bullshitting you, an Americans. Having those things supposedly deployed between mainland China and Taiwan excluded every NATO presence over there like an alligator in the swimming pool. Informational A2/AD. On the other hand, once at the start of 1990s when I met Cdr Alexey Burilichev, a VADM and a deep-water boss now, while he was a CO of SSN K-461 "Wolf", I instantly concluded that he is a true leader and a man of inborn integrity. Hardly can he be in charge of some cheap farce from below the water.
So let's think logically.
1. If we have a deep submerged drone somewhere in deep ocean alone, either it has a pre-setting program (which is unthinkable given the nuke warhead - if it went crazy we will have a natural disaster, indeed), or it is controlled by some VLF way that is in long use by all major navies.
2. If you ever touched the question of VLF, you know how slow is the speed of informational flow, that is why the time required for any SSBN of any navy to get up to the launching depth just to be able to receive the keys that de-blocked the missiles via HF or satellite and then fire is about 20-25 minutes - while SSBN is at just 80 meters depth, she can receive the information at the mere speed of Morse radio-telegraph, the deeper the slower. If a drone is intended to be far below, a single piece of information to it can last a minutes while transmitted. What about the transmission from the drone by the same way? Total bull - if it is not trailing a mile-long antenna, and again, an eternity to send even short message.
3. Suppose the old sciense fiction comes true - for example, we the Russians found the way to modulate the flow of neutrino and thus to communicate to submerged subs beyond the radiofrequency realm. Russians made that and nobody in LHC in Swiss CERN is aware? Another bullshit.
4. The only way to operate that drone remotely remains - a SOFAR channel, but it means either the network of controlling stations should be installed in the ocean's floor (a kind of cellphone netting), or a mothership manned submarine should be in vicinity.

If this beast is real, I suppose a tought number 4B - a mum sub, manned one. A kind of old Japanese Kaiten carrier (look at upcoming movie "USS Indianapolis" by Nicolas Cage). Maybe not as a carrier indeed, but as a control station for several drones (a little swarm). Given the fact that Russian Navy (though not definitely Navy, the owner of them remains unclear) have at least several so-called "nuclear deepwater stations" (called "AS-xx"), it can be at least the partial answer.
Strictly for me - I think this is an information warfare booby trap, much like the Chinese DF-21N anticarrier ballistic missile. We will see.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

How many of these has Russia built and fielded (if any)? What naval unit is in charge of piloting them?

To be correct enough after hearing "ha-ha-ha" from my classmates and fellow officers still in service - no Russian Navy unit nowaday possess this tricky device.

 

[Hair Warrior]

Strictly for me - I think this is an information warfare booby trap, much like the Chinese DF-21N anticarrier ballistic missile. We will see.

Thanks for the detailed reply!

Why do you say the Chinese DF-21N is an information warfare booby trap? Do you think it is fake/ it does not really exist?

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Why do you say the Chinese DF-21N is an information warfare booby trap? Do you think it is fake/ it does not really exist?

I think the Chinese once somehow copied MGM-31C and were forced to hit the brakes definitely where US militaries did that before with the same missile: it is not precise enough to be used other than in nuke mode, let alone against moving targets. So if this Chinese wunderwaffe is nuke, it won't be employed anyhow but for deterrance. If it is not nuke-armed, it won't be employed as it won't hit a ship, even a big ship, but by occasion. That's my thought.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Ok, that is why our Air-Space Forces (puffy modern words for Air Force), while boasting by some MIRV warheads able to maneuvre on the terminal part of the way down, never put it so far to claim the moveable targets can be aimed by.
Soviet Navy was always secondary to Army and (later) Air Force. It is usual for landmass country, Germany and France were directly the sourses of this approach for Russian Empire. But, as well as in the noted countries, the Navy had always been the cadre sourse for the other services, providing them with amazingly well trained and motivated personnell, both an officers and men. At the beginning of 1960s, when the ballistic missiles stepped out of shadow an mass, up to 40% of annual alumnees of Naval Colleges could be unvoluntary transferred to Strategic Missile Forces, with change of the uniform, ranks, career ways and so on. One of those guys - Marshal Irog Sergeev - was able to climb up to Defence Minister armchair. Aside of his career, it was usual in the late USSR to have the land shaft missile divisions commanding officers, a mobile launchers (both wheels and railroad) COs and a SSBN COs all NavColl classmates. In short, while not in naval uniform, it is the Navy guys who were in charge of all strategic missile matters then. While time changes, a tradition is still of some significanse. So when my classmates who are launching Bulava say the DF-21 is farce, it is farce at least mostly, indeed.